[87] In the committee, however, it appeared that there was a strong body of churchmen, who were determined not to give up a single word or form; to whom it seemed that the prayers were no prayers without the surplice, the babe no Christian if not marked with the cross, the bread and wine no memorials of redemption or vehicles of grace if not received on bended knee.

Why, these persons asked, was the docile and affectionate son of the Church to be disgusted by seeing the irreverent practices of a conventicle introduced into her majestic choirs?
Why should his feelings, his prejudices, if prejudices they were, be less considered than the whims of schismatics?
If, as Burnet and men like Burnet were never weary of repeating, indulgence was due to a weak brother, was it less due to the brother whose weakness consisted in the excess of his love for an ancient, a decent, a beautiful ritual, associated in his imagination from childhood with all that is most sublime and endearing, than to him whose morose and litigious mind was always devising frivolous objections to innocent and salutary usages?
But, in truth, the scrupulosity of the Puritan was not that sort of scrupulosity which the Apostle had commanded believers to respect.

It sprang, not from morbid tenderness of conscience, but from censoriousness and spiritual pride; and none who had studied the New Testament could have failed to observe that, while we are charged carefully to avoid whatever may give scandal to the feeble, we are taught by divine precept and example to make no concession to the supercilious and uncharitable Pharisee.

Was every thing which was not of the essence of religion to be given up as soon as it became unpleasing to a knot of zealots whose heads had been turned by conceit and the love of novelty?
Painted glass, music, holidays, fast days, were not of the essence of religion.

Were the windows of King's College Chapel to be broken at the demand of one set of fanatics?
Was the organ of Exeter to be silenced to please another?
Were all the village bells to be mute because Tribulation Wholesome and Deacon Ananias thought them profane?
Was Christmas no longer to be a day of rejoicing?
Was Passion week no longer to be a season of humiliation?
These changes, it is true, were not yet proposed.